ASEAN’s Six-Point Principles on the South China Sea released in a Statement of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers in Cambodia, 20 July 2012 could be seen as a timely action of ASEAN Member States to regain the Association’s image which had been believed to be lost due to the failure of the 45th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting to issue its joint communiqué.

The Principles named reflects ASEAN Member States’s efforts to realize ‘ASEAN’s centrality and role as the primary driving force in charting the evolving regional architecture’,[1] including the enhancement for maintaining peace and stability in South China Sea.